Holding Wall Street Accountable

It’s no secret to folks in Wisconsin — but Wall Street is running roughshod over working people. From hundreds of miles away, people who have never even been to our state are playing with Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsinites’ lives like Monopoly pieces. Tammy is fighting to stop that.

Brokaw, Wisconsin

The paper mill in Brokaw, Wisconsin hummed along for more than a hundred years — the beating heart of the town. Then a hedge fund came in, took control of the company, and sold the mill for a quick buck. Hundreds of workers were laid off, and the Village of Brokaw was driven into insolvency.

With no consideration for the generations of workers who had built Brokaw, Wall Street nearly destroyed the village.

That’s why Tammy introduced the bipartisan Brokaw Act to rein in activist hedge funds and rewrite the rules for Wall Street to protect Main Street. The Brokaw Act, supported by businesses across the country, will help make sure that what happened to Brokaw doesn’t happen to any other town.

Closing Hedge Fund Loopholes

That isn’t the only way Wall Street is getting away with cheating working people. For far too long, our tax code has been rigged by powerful special interests to benefit millionaires, billionaires, and hedge fund managers on Wall Street. And the carried interest tax loophole allows these hedge fund managers to pay a lower tax rate than many working Wisconsinites.

Tammy took action and introduced tax reform to eliminate this loophole and make sure those at the top pay their fair share. As middle class families live paycheck-to-paycheck, Tammy continues to stand up against Washington gifting Wall Street more tax breaks.

Avoiding Another Financial Crisis

In Congress, Tammy was one of only a handful of votes against repealing the Glass Steagall Act, which separated risky investment banking from traditional banking. That repeal has repeatedly been pointed out as a driving force behind the 2008 financial crisis.

Tammy helped introduce the bipartisan 21st Century Glass Steagall Act, which would reintroduce commonsense oversight and make sure Wall Street does not play fast and loose with Wisconsinites’ hard-earned money.

It’s been 10 years since the financial crisis, and Wisconsin families are still recovering. But Washington is listening to Wall Street big banks that just pushed through a massive banking deregulation bill. Tammy stood up to this rollback, which included giveaways for America’s biggest megabanks, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, would boost the chances of more bailouts in the future. It’s time Washington learns the lessons of the Great Recession, so Tammy introduced legislation that would stop the surge of corporate stock buybacks.